The Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University in the United States is inviting applications from scholars, practitioners, innovators, engineers, artists, and others whose research advances Internet and society studies in the public interest, for fellowships for the 2024-2025 academic year.
The opportunity is for scholars and practitioners who wish to spend 2024-2025 in residence in Cambridge, MA, as part of the Center’s vibrant community of research and practice, and who seek to engage in collaborative, cross-disciplinary, and cross-sectoral exploration of the Internet’s most important issues.
The institution has refined several elements of the fellowship programme. Drawing on experience engaging fellows over the last two decades, they seek to make the fellowship sustainable for participants while preserving the range of opportunities and special environment that fellows have both benefited from and worked to build.
Fellows would be expected, during the programme, to produce at least one public output that impacts and informs scholarly and public debates in the arenas in which they work. These outputs could take any form, such as technical or design prototype(s); public writing, such as long-form pieces, op-eds, blog posts, or interviews; convenings organized and led by the fellow; reports or white papers; a website or other online resource or academic writing, such as a research paper.
In addition to each fellow’s personal research agenda, fellows will, together, actively design and participate in weekly all-fellows sessions at which research and ideas are presented and discussed, and they will participate in other cohort-scoped activities, such as working groups, skill-building sessions and trainings, workshops, and shared meals.
While engaging in both substance and process is a baseline expectation, much of what makes the fellowship program rewarding is created each year by the fellows themselves to address their interests and priorities. These entrepreneurial, collaborative ventures – ranging at once from goal-oriented to experimental, from rigorous to humorous – ensure the dynamism of the fellowship experience and program.
The fellowship will welcome applications from people whose work on the Internet and society may overlap with ongoing work at the Berkman Klein Center and may expose the community to new opportunities and approaches.
For the 2024-2025 year, applications are invited from academics who are post-docs or professors, as well as PhD students and candidates.
People who are pursuing their PhDs and are selected as fellows will receive a stipend of $5,000 for the year of their fellowship. This is intended to support any additional research/ travel costs associated with the fellowship.
Some 2024-2025 fellows will have another source of funding during the fellowship year and rely upon the Center’s funding to help offset the higher cost of living in the Cambridge/Boston area and/or other incremental costs associated with the fellowship. A small number of 2024-2025 fellows will receive funds from the Center to cover the full costs of their fellowship year.
Applicants requiring funding to defray costs will be asked to indicate the amount that they are seeking for and may receive a partial stipend of up to $10,000. Applicants requiring funding to cover the full costs will be asked to indicate the amount that they are seeking and will receive full stipend up to $75,000.
Applicants seeking funding, whether partial or full, are expected to indicate whether or not their ability to accept a fellowship is contingent upon receiving those funds.
Submission of applications closes on January 22, 2024.
For more information and to apply, please visit https://cyber.harvard.edu/getinvolved/fellowships/2425Fellows.
